"I quite agree with you, my dear Madam Vipon, and admire your discretion. It is singular how you take after your brother. Pierre Pitou had the reputation of being the most discreet man in the regiment of Touraine."
Ronald was very excited when he heard from Malcolm that he had actually obtained news at second hand as to his mother, and it was with difficulty that his friend persuaded him to allow matters to go on as he proposed.
"It will never do to hurry things now, Ronald; everything is turning out beyond our expectations. A fortnight ago it seemed absolutely hopeless that you should communicate with your mother; now things are in a good train for it."
Accordingly Malcolm made no further allusion to the subject to Madame Vipon until a fortnight had passed; then he said, on calling on her one day:
"Do you know, my dear Madam Vipon, I have had a letter from the gentleman of whom I was speaking to you. He is full of gratitude at the news I sent him. I did not tell him from whom I had heard the news, save that it was from one of the kindest of women, the sister of an old comrade of mine. He has sent me this"--and he took out a small box which he opened, and showed a pretty gold broach, with earrings to match--"and bid me to give it in his name to the person who had sent him this good news."
"That is beautiful," Madam Vipon said, clapping her hands; "and I have so often wished for a real gold broach! Won't my husband open his eyes when he sees them!"
"I think, if I might advise, my dear madam," Malcolm said, "I should not give him the exact history of them. He might take it into his head that you had been gossiping, although there is no woman in the world less given to gossiping than you are. Still, you know what husbands are. Therefore, if I were you I would tell him that your brother Pierre had sent them to you through me, knowing, you see, that you could not have read a letter even if he could have written one."
"Yes, perhaps that would be the best," Madam Vipon said; "but you had better write to Pierre and tell him. Otherwise when he comes home, and my husband thanks him for them, he might say he had never sent them, and there would be a nice affair."
"I will do so," Malcolm said; "but in any case I am sure your wit would have come to the rescue, and you would have said that you had in fact bought them from your savings; but that thinking your husband might grumble at your little economies you had thought it best to say that they came from your brother."
"Oh, fie, monsieur; I am afraid you are teaching me to tell stories."